Memory Monday # 6

     I learned to read when I was four...my sister was two years older than I, and as she came home from first grade, learning to read, I learned right along with her.  We didn't have kindergarten back then...and as I have mentioned, we lived only two houses down from the school.  I wanted to go with her...I remember, in nice weather, I could hear the kids out playing during recess...my mom had a tough time keeping me home..I would try to go down to play with them!!

     In first grade, when I finally got to go, my teacher was Miss Cosgrove...the sweetest, kindest lady in the world...a perfect first grade teacher.  And I think I and a couple other of the little girls were kind of her favorites as we were Catholic...in a public school..in  a town where Catholics were in a minority.

    Again...back in the good ol' days, people didn't get too hung up about separation of religion and public schools.  Miss Cosgrove would have never tried to influence the Protestant kids, but I remember her helping us Catholic girls learn our Catechism.  First grade was the year when we would receive first communion and go to confession for the first time.  She would have wanted us to be very proper and good at it...and to feel comfortable.  So we practiced...my mom always told the story that I confessed my "sins" (at age six!) to Miss Cosgrove rather than Father Scanlan!  ( I was kind of scared of him...tall, white haired, red-faced...I grew to love him but not yet!)

     We even had a Christmas Pageant at school...and guess who got to be Mary???  Yep, blonde haired, blue-eyed me!!

First grade Nativity Scene-(me far left as Mary)